Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

I don't understand that. Apart from the GCC countries this is the most energy-intensive society, so it has the greatest incentive to reduce costs. So perhaps it is ideologues that pay the most, and not pioneers.

NV Energy, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy, has agreed to a power purchase agreement (PPA) at a $0.0387 per kWh rate for the 100 MW output of First Solar’s Playa Solar 2 installation. It is likely the lowest rate for solar energy-generated electricity made public to date, Bloomberg reports, and is likely the cheapest electricity available in the U.S. today.

[lineygoblue]

We definitely need more government.

And more fracking....I need cheap gas for the Hummer I want to buy ...

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psst .. guys .. sarcasm ..

[hack]

Government had nothing to do with it, really. Yes they shouldn't have been in the business of picking winners, but things went as expected over the past several years -- the costs came down as scale increased, and now anyone not doing solar in a hot place is just stupid.

[CGVT]

The point of my posts was that we were able to put a man on the moon in ten years. If we had put that same effort into finding a viable alternative energy source to replace oil in 1972 we most certainly would have been able to by now.

It doesn't take a genius or a tree hugger to see that the reason we didn't is because oil lines too many pockets even though it is terrible for the environment and is it a finite resource.

Oil = money and power, therefore we are fucked

[hack]

In that Trumpian ``the others are eating our lunch and smart about it sense'', note that frack the heck out of our own country isn't the wise way to go about it. Let others deplete their reserves and save for yourself. That's what China's doing in building its own strategic reserves of key commodities.

[lineygoblue]

I just want to see more fracking simply because its an awesome word that drives so many people crazy.

[hack]

Frack you then.

[drok]

Frackin' cylons

[hack]

The Iowa State Frackin' Cyclons

[Da Geezer]

I don't understand that. Apart from the GCC countries, this is the most energy-intensive society, so it has the greatest incentive to reduce costs. So perhaps it is ideologues that pay the most, and not pioneers.

I agree on the incentives. The US has the lowest cost energy (except for the GCC) in the world. I'd say the US is reacting to incentives. I do wonder about the relationship between incentives and availability of supply. Caviar costs less in the Caspian Sea Region.

Pioneers always pay more because they do not have economies of scale and because most technologies are improved by trial-and-error if nothing else.

. . . note that frack the heck out of our own country isn't the wise way to go about it. Let others deplete their reserves and save for yourself. That's what China's doing in building its own strategic reserves of key commodities.

As Hoss would say, false equivalence. First, we only do very limited fracking in the US because it is strictly regulated, particularly on government lands. Second, if the proponents of AE are correct, then it will displace hydrocarbon-based energy. Why, then, save oil and gas for future use? The commodities China is storing are projected to increase in cost in the future. That is not the prediction for oil and gas.

We will see what is the low-cost source of energy is in the future and now might be a good time to once again read about the Julian Simon Bet. What we do know for sure is that oil and gas products pay about 50% of gross in various taxes. We also know that AE needs massive government subsidies in order to be even marginally competitive. Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy (now Berkshire Hathaway Energy) has always been a heavily subsidized provider of ethanol and solar. I'm less than sanguine about the Great Rent-Seeker making any deal when I know for a fact that he purchased a railroad when he found out that the Keystone Pipeline was not going to be built.

And finally, everything we are talking about is far down the logic tree that arises from a belief that global warming (or climate change if you prefer) is a threat to humanity. So, one has to answer in the affirmative to the following questions at a minimum:

Is GW happening?
Is it harmful?
Is it man-made?
if so, is it caused by carbon dioxide?
if so, is it because the CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels?
if so, can one country affect change in global weather 84 years from now?

These seem like sensible questions to ask, and in the 1970's we did ask them about global cooling. There were some positive changes like the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. But no one considered reordering society and giving away sovereignty to address the problem.

Would you believers in climate change favor a crash program, like getting to the moon, to develop nuclear fusion? Your answer tells a lot about the real argument in favor of AE. Why has that not been seriously proposed by any group of countries?

[hack]

I think in truth there will be oil and gas in use for a very long time. Even proponents of renewable energy would agree that with very few exceptions you can't use them as a complete replacement. There is no solar power to be generated when the sun isn't shining, so unless utility-scale storage is available, these will never be anything more than elements of the mix. The only thing we've got to full-out stop using is coal. For everything else, even bucking petroleum products back to 50% of the global energy mix gets you to the targets pledged at the Paris summit.

What we do know for sure is that oil and gas products pay about 50% of gross in various taxes. We also know that AE needs massive government subsidies in order to be even marginally competitive

That's not true. That bid of less than 5 cents per kilowatt hour in New Mexico has been replicated in the UAE and in Mexico. I think in truth there are plenty of ways to slice it, so if you read partisan media you'll be prone to believing that its the other side that gets the lion's share, but in truth solar is a great example -- the support it received has helped costs to plunge to a point where it is now the cheapest way to produce power if you're in the sun bet. It's pretty common for new things to get subsidized. So basically, various Solyndras aside, on a global basis this worked as it was supposed to.

I agree with you that nuclear is an excellent solution and we no longer have the luxury of turning our noses up at it. The science on climate change is settled, and I look forward to the Big Tobacco-style Exxon lawsuit brewing now. It's a shame that it got to this, but it is indeed time for triage, and nuclear is the first step. Fusion would be awesome but for now get going with the conventional fission technology. I think in another time and place it was reasonable to try to aim for a pristine planet, but we're past that and have to make choices now. BTW search Netflix for the Vice documentary on alternative energy, which features Taylor Wilson, the Doogie Howser of nuclear physics. He's chasing fusion, and it would be a great technological leap. An Ann Arbor writer is found Wilson initially a few years ago. Still though without large-scale storage it's gas or coal power plants that are the most flexible in terms of ramping up fast or shutting down fast, so they are needed and will be in the mix.

While I appreciate the point you make at the beginning of your point, I think being the most energy-intensive economy combined with being import dependent is a foreign-policy disaster that leads to a humanitarian disasters as well as budget disasters, because we have to police the region and subsidize the toys sold to the Saudi military. So keep the stuff in the ground as a matter of leverage.

[lineygoblue]

I agree with you that nuclear is an excellent solution and we no longer have the luxury of turning our noses up at it.

I agree with this. With today's technology, I think the fears of meltdowns and mass nuclear contamination can be greatly alleviated. We've had nuclear powered vessels in the Navy for decades now, with rarely any sort of meltdown incident. As I understand it, the biggest problem with nuclear power is the nuclear waste, or spent nuclear fuel, and how to dispose of it safely. That needs to be worked out.

Otherwise nuclear is a very clean and inexpensive option.

[hack]

The problem is that Michigan is next to Ohio, otherwise the latter would be the ideal dumping ground.

[Mike]

The problem is that Michigan is next to Ohio, otherwise the latter would be the ideal dumping ground.

I'm willing to risk it if we could dump some spent fuel rods in Columbus.

[THE_WIZARD_]

seconded